Bertha Lives On! Storm Threat Saturday

Here is the Friday afternoon version of the severe threat from the SPC for the weekend. Notice how the first one for Saturday into Sunday morning ends just barely to our west. Notice how the second one for Sunday morning to Monday morning starts just to our east. The idea here is that the action gets to us late at night and the simmer down before getting going again during daytime heating as the front progresses east on Sunday. As I’ve said for several posts now, this is very similar to last Tuesday. The front will be approaching, it will be hot and humidity should increase somewhat. We may pop some heat induced t’storms in the afternoon should the lapse rates allow. Storms along the front may indeed hold together into the late evening, like last Tuesday, and make things interesting. That is what we will watch for. Saturday morning through early afternoon activities will be fine and the later you go in the afternoon, the better the chance for an isolated t’storm to pop up.

Make sure you have plenty of water and take breaks. Snow White and I sculled up the Ohio River on Friday and I had plenty of sunscreen…just didn’t have enough water before I left and none in the scull. I didn’t make it to 12 mile island and Snow White was ahead of me for much of the way back down stream. I was a noodle when we were done. Not smart. Don’t be dopey like me.

Hurricane Bertha Lives!!

The top photo is an image you won’t see much. It’s an infared image for use in the Dvorak method of analysing the intensity of a tropical cyclone and is depended on when a storm is too far away for using aircraft to collect observational data. The second is a standard satellite view of the Atlantic. Bertha seems to have a pretty big eye but, while I haven’t watched it that closely, it would appear to me that dry air may have gotten into the storm for a time which may be the reason for the big eye. This is not a storm that will be getting stronger any time soon and that is the forecast. It’s going to get over colder water and, from the 3rd graphic of the forecast track map, you can tell it will miss Bermuda and then kinda slow down. It’s going to get caught up beneath some ridging to the north. That will try to steer it to the west but the coriolis force that far north is strong and it will want to take it east. The fourth graphic is a depiction of what 3 computer models think. Notice one has it loop around to the east of Bermuda. While the official track takes this northeast, don’t be surprised if it meanders for a while. Surf should be up in Bermuda for several days.

If you want to learn more about the Dvorak technique, here is a link that has further links some of which are attributed to Dr. Jack Beven. He was finishing his Doctoral work at Florida State University while I was there. He is a very smart guy and his work is no doubt advancing the field of Tropical Meteorology